May 22, 2015

Crop Circles: Step 783

The first order of business is to cut those perfect circles into quarters. For some reason that was hard for me. But I did it.

There are a couple of ways to proceed with the wedges and quarter circles. You can appliqué the quarter circle to the wedge, then appliqué the whole wedge/circle unit onto the background. Or, do as I preferred, which was to use the background square as a guide and position first the wedge, then the quarter circle.

I am using a new to me tool by Sewline. That pink pen like thing in the photo above is a glue stick especially designed for appliqué. It is blue, but dries clear. I am applying it to the edge of the underside of the wedge and circle shapes to position them in place on my background square for appliquéing. I really do like it. I got mine on Amazon.com and it comes with one refill.

I am trying not to get the glue right at the very edge of the appliqué piece because I don't want to sew on it and get my needle all gunky.

I am appliquéing the four squares for each block in sets of five. I managed to complete 10 blocks (40 segments) on Thursday afternoon. The appliqué process is going great. In a nutshell, here are my machine settings etc:

And I am here to tell you, that machine appliqué stitch is really invisible. The blind hemstitch takes three or four tiny stitches in the ditch between the appliqué piece and the background, then takes a "bite" out of the appliqué piece to secure it. Every one of them is coming out fantastic. Go ahead, enlarge that photo. See what I mean? And that isn't my best effort, I just picked that example up randomly. I think this method is better than hand appliqué because it doesn't show and it is fast.

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend all of you! I guess you know what I will be doing!

I love the invisible nature of that thread but I HATE using it. I like ironing my blocks too much. I freak out just thinking it will melt. LOL!
I use that glue all the time. Wish the refills were more affordable, but it is my favorite glue. Oh! and I sew over it all the time. No gunk on the needle.
I have been saving all your post for when I start my crop circle quilt. Hopefully I can forget about my chopped finger and can bring myself to it sooner than later.